Commendable

I've been looking for a GTX 970 performer for a while (Since my 960 is already getting old and getting unplayable frame-rates.) and have been putting my time in for you guys, and for me, to provide which is the better choice in the US. So before i buy my graphics card, i wanted to show you guys this list of graphics cards i have came up with. It took me about 1.5 months to do this. Any suggestions let me know!

(Keep in mind that these are my opinions and are basic mini-reviews as well.)

RX 480 8GB
Price: $239 to $289 respectively.
Performance (As of August 3rd, 2016): 17TH
Best for: Budget Gamers, Medium- High Workloads, Works great for Starting Businesses.
Pros: Affordable, Futureproof, Low TDP, Above Average Quality, Open Source, Asynchronous Computing, Better DX12 and Vulkan support.
Cons: Heat (Only for reference models), Bad performance in Nvidia Titles (Can be worked around), Over MSRP Until about Q1 2017.
A great card from AMD, Value is incredible but not the best at the moment (August, 2016)

GTX 970
Price: $229 to $299
Performance: 18TH (And Rising because of newer api's)
Best For: Budget Gamers, Medium and some High Workloads, Works great for Starting Businesses.
Pros: Has Come down in price, Low TDP, Nvidia Features,and Lower Temps.
Cons: Performance Decreasing, 3.5GB + 0.5GB of Vram, RX 480 Better at this price point, GTX 1060 Better at this price point, isn't Open Source, and Lacking support of DX12 and Vulkan.
Great card for a budget at the time of launch till early 2016, Isn't really an option for people that have R9 390's, RX 480's, and GTX 1060's available.

GTX 1060
Price: $279 to $329 (And above)
Performance: 10TH
Best for: Budget Gamers who want a little more power, Medium to High Workloads, Works for Small Businesses and Starting Business, and Nvidia Features.
Pros: Greatly low TDP of 120w, Slightly better in performance in DX11 and OpenGL then the RX 480, More Futureproof then the 960, 970, and 980, Software asynchronous computing.
Cons: RX 480 works better in Vulkan and DX12 at a cheaper price point, No SLI, Currently above MSRP and should lower to it at the end of Q3 2016, Slightly slower then its predecessor the GTX 980. 6GB rather then 8GB of Vram, Less Future proof then AMD's Offerings.
This card at the moment is only for people who need Nvidia's features for Work or Gaming.

R9 390
Price $229 to $269 (And Lowering.)
Performance: 14TH (And slightly lowering over-time due to newer api's)
Best For: Budget Gamers, Medium to High workloads,Good for Small and Starting Businesses.
Pros: Slightly Faster then RX 480, Futureproof, Some website's offer Total War free with purchase (As of August, 2016).
Cons: High TDP, High Temp,RX 480 Available with lower temps, TDP, and price. Max price version's of the R9 390 can buy a R9 390x.
If you already own a R9 390, You don't need to upgrade, The R9 300 series supports DX12, Vulkan, and has Asynchronous Computing. If you're looking at buying this card vs the RX 480, Buy either the 390x or RX 480.

R9 390x
Price: $279 to $339
Performance: Better than a GTX 980/ 9TH
Best For: Budget Gamers, Medium to High workloads,Good for Normal sized, Small, and Starting Businesses.
Pros: Faster then RX 480, Futureproof, Some website's offer Total War free with purchase (As of August, 2016), Faster then a GTX 980.
Cons: High TDP, High Temp, Max price versions of the 390X can buy you a Used or (Amazon price) Sapphire Fury, Best of the R9 300 series, Newer then the GTX 980 and R9 390.
Don't upgrade this card until AMD makes a GTX 980 or GTX 980 and 980 Ti In-between. (Between the 980 and 980 ti levels of performance). Its a great card if you're willing to put up with the heat and power demands of this card. Will run almost anything at 1440p with at least 60FPS.

GTX 980 TI
Price: $399 to $459
Performance: 3RD
Best for: Gamers wanting the Highest Frame-rates, High to Highest Workloads, Great for Big and Normal sized Businesses, Video Creators, an Enterprise work.
Pros: Faster then AMD's Fastest Single GPU card, the Fury X, 6GB of Vram, Really low TDP for Power Users, Best of the Maxwell 900 Series, Has come down in price.
Cons: Not very Futureproof, High Temps, Not Great support on DX12, Vulkan, and some OpenGL applications.
Fastest Nvidia GPU (And Fastest general GPU) until the GTX 1080 was announced. You can keep the 980 ti as it wont go out of date until about 2-3 years time. Even then it will still be a stellar performer.

R9 Fury/Fury X/Nano
Price: $349 to $800+
Performance: 5Th (Fury X) 6TH (Fury) and 8TH (Nano)
Best for: Gamers wanting the Highest Frame-rates, High to Highest Workloads, Great for Big and Normal sized Businesses, and Enterprise work.
Pros: HBM for a fast memory Bus, lower TDP then the R9 300 series, Fury X is watercooled for lower temps, and High - Quality Materials.
Cons: Overpriced if above $800, Only 4GB of Vram (Its HBM so it's not so bad, But it will hurt it's futureproof-ness in the long run), GTX 980 TI or GTX 1070 is available at a cheaper price point with greater performance and more futureproof-ness because of more Vram.
Great if you own one of these, But Upgrade once a better version from AMD comes out or if Nvidia made a Geforce card better then this one at a lower price point.

GTX 1080/GTX 1070
Price: $389 to $759
Performance: 1st (GTX 1080) and 2ND (GTX 1070)
Best for: Gamers wanting the Highest Frame-rates, High to Highest Workloads, Great for Big and Normal sized Businesses, Video Creators, an Enterprise work.
Pros: Fastest cards around, 8GB of Vram (GDDR5X for the GTX 1080), Nvidia Features, 16nm architecture, Cheaper Launch price then Maxwell, No competition at the moment (Other then "Crossfired" Rx 480's and R9 390/390x's. or Vulkan/DX12 support) Futureproof.
Cons: A Little over MSRP, Lower DX12/Vulkan support, and VR problems at launch.
The Fastest Card (GTX 1080) on the market as of August, 2016. If you want power, you got it on these two cards. If you own these you won't need to upgrade for another 3-5 years (At the most).

R9 380/380x/280/280x/285/270x/270
Price: $100 to $220
Performance: Between 24TH (R9 380X) to 47TH (R9 270)
Best For: Budget Gamers, Medium to low workloads, Starting PC builders/Gamers, and starting/local businesses.
Pros: R9 380/380x faster then the GTX 960 at a attractive price, and DX12/Vulkan support, and a little future proof. (R9 200 series only) (Except the R9 285)
Cons: Will only last up to 2.5 years at max, RX 480 is available at the R9 380X's price range in the US with 4Gb or (If your lucky) 8GB of Vram, and High TDP/Temps for the performance level.
Good card if upgrading form either a 750 ti or 950. Good for starting PC gaming.

GTX 950/750TI/R7 Series
Price: $40 to $150
Performance: 50TH and above.
Best for: Budget Gamers, Pre-built system upgrades, SFF builds, Old PC Upgrades, Low Power PC Builds, and Starting PC Builders.
Pros: Can be Found Cheap, Offer Great Price/Performance, R7 series has better DX12 and Vulkan support. (It will not improve frame-rates (Except for Vulkan) that much.)
Cons: Not Guaranteed 60FPS at 1080P, Not futureproof, Games may be unplayable, Support will slowly go away.
Good for the price but it will not last you long unless if you play to use this for a Old PC Upgrade, or SFF rig. Wouldn't recommend it if it's above $130 as a R9 380 could do better.

That's all I have tested and researched for you guys. This will surely help people in the future! Thanks!

Commendable

I know. This is a list containing full on tests, and bench-marking, of these cards. Not only that, but its also showcasing my opinion on the subject. This list also gives more detail to each (or a group of) graphics card(s). Not by specification, but by performance levels.

Titan

I know. This is a list containing full on tests, and bench-marking, of these cards. Not only that, but its also showcasing my opinion on the subject. This list also gives more detail to each (or a group of) graphics card(s). Not by specification, but by performance levels.

Commendable

I know. This is a list containing full on tests, and bench-marking, of these cards. Not only that, but its also showcasing my opinion on the subject. This list also gives more detail to each (or a group of) graphics card(s). Not by specification, but by performance levels.

and you own all the cards? need to detail on your performance test

The cards that where grouped score's were taken off from PassMark and/or Futuremark. The rest of the cards that were either singled out, The Fury X/Fury/Nano, or the GTX 1080/1070 are my tests. These tests were conducted with a i7 6700k, G. Skillz DDR4 (32GB), MSI B150M Bazooka Plus LGA 1151 Micro Atx motherboard, 1TB Samsung SSD, and the CPU wasn't overclocked. I tested these with my job's cards. (We Build/Repair PC's. These were new from the manufacturer) But i was aloud to use them our test bench (To figure out if we have any problems with are graphics cards, ram, CPU, HDD, ext. My boss lets me do these things on my free-time. (As long as i get my work done of course.)

Basically one title each where theres a significant benefit for each card, the rest are close enough to be within margin of error.

Okay. I Under stand that. I Used 3dmark Timespy DX12, and DirectX 12 Overhead API, for these tests. But those are benchmarks. In real world testing it's not noticeable. But i said its better because of the RX 480 having Hardware Asynchronous Computing.
The GTX 1060 has asynchronous computing too but it isn't hardware but rather software. That's why in Time spy, the RX 480 has the advantage. I also think the RX 480 has the advantage in DX12 because DX12 was made off of Mantle.